


To become a thing is to know a thing

by celestialskiff



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Changelings, Dax's past hosts, Dirty Talk, F/F, F/M, Friendship, Gender Identity, Kira's family, Kissing, M/M, Mild Kink, Multi, Occupation of Bajor, Polyamory, Season/Series 04, Sexuality, Shapeshifting, Threesome, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-01
Updated: 2014-08-01
Packaged: 2018-02-11 08:24:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2060976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celestialskiff/pseuds/celestialskiff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>You humanoids. You're all obsessed with these convoluted mating rituals</i>. Dax helps Odo feel less alone. Or maybe it's the other way around. Meanwhile, Kira searches for someone she lost during the Occupation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To become a thing is to know a thing

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to AceofWands and SweetPollyOliver for their insight, support, and beta-reading. Remaining mistakes, inconsistencies and infelicities are entirely my own. 
> 
> Art by theangelshavethephonebooth can be seen [here](http://theangelshavethephonebooth.tumblr.com/post/93500244215/this-is-my-piece-for-the-trekbigbang-this-is).

ODO

The Cardassian vole ran through the access hatch and into the cargo bay. If anyone had asked, Odo would have said that he was conducting a routine check using the best resources available to him, but really the cargo didn't need it. He just enjoyed the chance to scuttle on six lithe feet rather than two heavy ones. 

He twitched his whiskers and clambered over one of the crates, smelling the faint, metallic scent of the ore from the Gamma Quadrant. 

“What was that?” 

For a moment the words were meaningless to his vole ears, but he still possessed all his usual intelligence, so they quickly coalesced into meaning. He hunkered low on the crate and crawled forward to get a look at the intruder. 

“Nothing. Probably just an echo.” As a vole, his eyesight wasn't as good as when he was a humanoid, but he recognised Jake Sisko's voice. He peered over the edge of the crate. 

Jake's hand was on Nog's shoulder, his knee on Nog's thigh. “It could be my father,” Nog said, glancing around. His vole hearing picked up a nervous tremor in Nog's voice that might have been too subtle for Jake to hear. 

“Your father wouldn't come down here. No one would. This cargo is in storage for another five days.” 

Nog looked away. Jake's hand reached over and traced the line of his ear, once, very tentatively. Nog shivered slightly, and his breath hitched. Odo, despite himself, crept closer. To touch a Ferengi's ear like that was an intimate gesture—surely Jake knew that? 

“Anyway,” Jake said, pressing still closer to Nog, “We wouldn't have to come down here if you would just let me tell my father about us. Then we could go to my quarters, even if you don't want Rom to know yet.” 

“I keep telling you,” Nog spat. “Your father's never going to keep supporting me as a Starfleet candidate if he knows what we're doing.” 

“He is,” Jake said. “Dad isn't prejudiced.” 

Nog snorted. “We'll see about that. His only son, and a Ferengi.” Nog nipped at his lower lip with his sharpened teeth. 

Jake touched the lip with his thumb, with a tenderness Odo never suspected he possessed. “Let's not fight right now. We don't have long before you go away.”

“I know.” Nog looked at the ground.

“I'll miss you,” Jake said. He was looking away too, worrying his hands against one another. It was Nog, this time, who reached for him, thumb finding Jake's ear, tracing its tender swirls. Jake drew in a breath as if he, too, was deeply affected by being touched there. He caught Nog's hand, and leaned over. 

Suddenly, almost before Odo had time to register it, they were tangled together, Nog straddling Jake's lap, Jake's fingers on Nog's ears, Nog's mouth sucking at Jake's lips. Their breaths, to the vole, were loud as a Klingon opera, echoing around the cargo bay. 

Odo could have returned to his humanoid shape and told them such lewd behaviour in a public area was entirely inappropriate. He didn't. He couldn't stop watching, stop seeing hands and mouths, the way dark human eyes stared adoringly at sensitive Ferengi lobes, couldn't stop hearing the soft sounds of skin on skin. He was fascinated. 

At last he slipped away, leaving them to their whispered conversation, their embraces. 

DAX 

“Come and have dinner with me and Benjamin tonight,” Jadzia said. She was still wrapped only in a towel, while Nerys, at the mirror, was giving the final touches to her make-up. 

“I told you, I can't. I promised Vedek Mara I would go over the new defence policies with her. There's another special conference about the Dominion.” 

“Are you sure you can't reschedule? Benjamin loves it when you come over. He can make all the spicy things that I don't like.”

“Captain Sisko does not love it when I come over,” Nerys said. She smoothed her hair and stepped back from the mirror. Jadzia had taught Nerys how to put on eye-liner, how to wear lipstick: it was not something Nerys had any need for growing up. Now Nerys softened the lines of her face regularly with make-up, but Jadzia remained unused to seeing her wearing any cosmetics other than lipstick. “He likes to spend time with his old man. Anyway, sadly I can't ask the Jem'Hadar to wait.” 

“You do intimidate him sometimes,” Jadzia said. “But he loves talking about Bajor. And he still wants you to teach him how to make hasperat.” 

“He should ask someone else,” Nerys said. “You know I can't cook.” 

Jadzia took Nerys's hand. “Please come. I feel like I barely see you any more.” 

“I really am just busy.” 

Her answer was sharp, and didn't convince Jadzia. She swallowed. “I don't blame you if you're still... upset.”

Nerys leant forward and kissed Jadzia's cheek. It was a brief, perfunctory kiss, but Jadzia raised her hand to the lipstick smear as thought it had been the most tender caress. “I was never upset. Or angry. Like I said, I know I'm in a relationship with a Trill. I'm just busy. Have a nice evening with the Captain.” 

She swept out. Jadzia stood, chewing her lip, playing Nerys's words back in her mind. Sometimes I am not at all like you, she thought. She stood so long she barely left herself any time to get dressed in her own uniform, and rushed to the science lab without any breakfast. 

“You look like you could use a holiday,” Keiko said to her when she arrived. Keiko was helping her run a series of experiments on some plants they'd recovered from the Gamma quadrant. The plants didn't seem to photosynthesise in a normal way, but their cell structure was remarkably similar to plants found all over the Alpha quadrant. 

“I just didn't have time for breakfast, or coffee,” Jadzia said. 

“You didn't have to rush down here. I'm sufficiently qualified to start without you.” Some people could have made a remark like that sound cutting, but Keiko said it jokingly. 

“I know, but four of my past hosts were allergic to being late.” Jadzia went over to the slides she had been preparing yesterday, and took out her PADD. They were working across a large table, Keiko experimenting on light sources for the plants on one side, and Jadzia using the microscope on the other. “Besides, it's nice to actually work on science for a change. I spend far too much time in Ops.” 

Keiko laughed. “I know what you mean. I spend too much time running after Molly.” 

“It's funny, isn't it: you study so much and you expect to spend your career doing important research...”

“And you end up doing something completely different.” 

“Pretty much,” Jadzia said. She adjusted a slide; licked her lips. Her stomach was tight and empty and she had a headache around her eyes. Other people were always so good at ignoring hunger: Jadzia found her hands were shaky after half an hour of pangs. She felt tired too: maybe she did need a holiday. “Things are still strange with Nerys,” she blurted out. 

Keiko put down her tricorder. “Have you talked to her about Lenara?” 

“She says she understands. She says Bajorans understand it's possible to love more than one person at once—she ranted about how it's just Cardassians who don't understand that. And she's always known polyamorous relationships are traditional among Trill. But she... She doesn't want to listen to anything I have to say about it. About Lenara. And she's so... distant now.” 

“I'd find it difficult,” Keiko said, “To be in a relationship like that, because it's not something I've ever experienced. But I think I could get used to it.” 

“I'm glad you think so.” Jadzia tugged at the bottom of her uniform, smoothing a crease that wasn't there. Keiko watched her calmly. “I love both of them so much. And that's hard, because I didn't think polyamory would ever be an issue for me. I thought I could have whatever kind of relationship my partner preferred. But when I met Lenara...” She drew in a breath. There was a shakiness in her voice and a tickle in her throat: her hunger, she decided, was making her too emotional. 

“You miss her.” 

“I miss both of them.” Jadzia picked up her PADD and dropped it down again. She put her hand over her mouth. “I'm fine,” she said into her hand. “Keiko, I'm sorry. I'm tired.” 

Keiko came around the table and squeezed Jadzia's shoulder. “It's a lot of work to love just one person. Of course you're tired.” 

Jadzia nodded mutely. 

“Come on, you're not going to get anything done like this. We'll break for coffee and toast.” 

They got food in the replimat, and ate under one of the long windows with a view of the wormhole. The promenade was quiet: Jake and Nog were sitting downstairs, reading from the same PADD and occasionally breaking into a heated discussion, but otherwise business was slow. 

Coffee made her mind clearer, and thin Bajoran fried bread spread with a translucent jelly made her feel solid. “You know, I wonder if we should compare those plants to early earth corals,” she said. “They might have a symbiotic relationship with another kind of cell...” 

Keiko smiled. “Of course _you'd_ think of symbiosis...” 

ODO 

In the privacy of his quarters, he could turn into a targ, a fire-cat, a praying mantis, a Ferengi ear worm. No shape felt comfortable: not his own gelatinous state, not the humanoid figure he wore so much. He imagined, sometimes, getting out, leaking through the space station walls and into the vast night beyond. Could he be a huge, silent whale, flying through the void? Could he be a star? Could he exist past atmosphere, past walls? 

What was he? 

The thought had been dormant for years. He was Odo, chief of security. He understood the rules, and he understood how to uphold them. That was all he needed to know. He had never wondered what he was—but when the thought came, it did not feel new. It felt like it had always been there, waiting for him. 

He was a changeling. He was Odo. He was a man... 

No. He stood in his quarters, a targ, sharp teeth mirroring sharp thoughts. He'd never been a man. Everyone treated him as if he were a solid, a solid humanoid male, but he was none of those things. There were rules for how a humanoid male was supposed to be behave, and he'd been following them for so long he'd forgotten to question them. He was safe within those boundaries. He wasn't sure what existed beyond them. 

He hadn't wanted to look beyond the boundaries for a long time. He'd only ever wanted to understand what he was, to learn about his species—it had taken all other questions away. But now he knew he was a changeling, and he didn't feel any more comfortable with himself. He was an alien pretending to be a solid, and sometimes it _hurt_... 

Suddenly uncomfortable as a morose targ, he changed back to the familiar contours of his humanoid self, growing cloth and skin. Too much time alone was doing him no good. Talking to others didn't make things better, but sometimes it distracted him. The shape felt strange to him—he wanted to be a Cardassian vole again, or a tree, or a moth. But he was duty-bound to be Odo, and he left his quarters and headed, without thinking about it, for Quark's. 

Mostly, when he wandered, he observed, as he'd observed Jake and Nog earlier. _Jake and Nog_. The thought of them made him feel strange. Quark is going to be horrified, he realised, suddenly amused. He stared over at the bartender. Quark's was relatively busy: a large number of Bajorans were crowded at one side of the bar, while a number of Starfleet types were celebrating the end of the shift. A couple of Ferengi nibbled tube grubs. 

Quark, however, was engaged in discussion with Dax. She was resting her elbows on the bar, leaning towards him. Odo was out of earshot, but he watched their conversation. Quark was grinning, looking like he was enjoy himself, never a good sign. He couldn't see Dax's face, but she was gesticulating a lot, a flagon of blood-wine at her elbow. 

Odo folded his arms over his chest, watched a Human male run his arm over another Human male, fingers lingering on the muscle beneath the uniform. 

Solids and sex. He was sick of thinking about it. 

He drifted closer to Dax and Quark. “I have!” Dax was saying. “OK, well, _I_ haven't, but Curzon has. He was a business associate of a young male called Flin, and he took _full_ advantage.”

“Did he.” It wasn't a question. Quark wiped at a patch of blood-wine. “I don't know what you mean. I said sex. A few oo-mox between business associates is not the same thing.” 

“Isn't it?” Dax said. “His encounter with Curzon was very sensual, as I recall.” She leant closer to Quark, and, despite himself, Odo found himself leaning towards her too. “The sounds he made,” she said, her voice low, fingers trailing over the flagon. “He made this wonderful, soft keening noise, and he was so open to Curzon, so excited. It was delightful.” 

Quark was leaning towards her too. “Well...” Then his eyes flicked up, glancing over the bar. “Odo! Sneaking up again.” 

“Odo.” Dax smiled, and swung around on her stool. She almost lost her balance, and caught herself with one hand on the bar. “Come here. Rescue me from Quark. We're swapping scandalous stories, and I'm not sure I'm being discrete.” 

“Knowing you, I doubt you are using discretion appropriate for a Starfleet officer,” Odo said. 

“Yes. Exactly.” Dax gestured to the seat next to her. “So come and save me.” 

Solids always liked him to sit down, though he didn't have muscles that got tired. Dax smiled again, radiantly, when he was next to her. “I'm a bit tipsy,” she said. 

“It'll wear off soon,” Odo said. 

“Yes. What a shame. I remember when I could stay drunk for weeks.” She rested her chin on her hands. Her expression was hard to read—the expressions of solids always were—but Odo thought she seemed morose. “So. Do you have any scandalous stories, Odo?”

“Of course not.” 

Dax sighed. 

“I could probably tell you some about Quark,” Odo suggested. 

“I already know the ones about Quark,” Dax said. “Late night tongo games are the best way to get someone's secrets.” 

“Then I can't help.” Odo looked over the bar, at the arrangement of bottles. Some of the colours glowed softly—yellows, blues, greens. He'd been a bottle of alcohol several times; he'd lingered as a Bajoran ale, tawny and smooth and calm. It felt relaxing, close to his natural state, a cool liquid barely contained in its glass. 

“Do you ever wish you could get drunk, Odo?” Dax asked. 

“Yes,” Odo said, fervently. 

Dax reached over and ran her fingers over the back of his hand. It took him a moment to process the sensation. His cells were attracted to hers, they wanted to cling to her body, to learn the shape of her, to learn what it was to be Dax. They remembered being Curzon, and they wanted to try it once more. 

She'd already pulled back by the time he'd really registered the gesture, and he wondered how she'd wanted him to respond. 

“You seem sad, Odo,” she said. 

Odo looked away. 

“You're so isolated. You remind me of Tobin sometimes—you're so competent, but hold yourself back from people. It's OK to be an observer, but I think you get lonely.” 

“I assure you, I'm fine.” 

“Have you ever invited anyone back to your quarters? Just a friend?”

“I wouldn't have anything to offer them.”

She gripped his arm. “Take me back there right now. We'll look at the stars and have a quiet chat before I go home to bed.” 

DAX

Nerys might not be asleep by the time she got home. Nerys was inclined to subsist on little sleep for days, wandering from room to room at night and working on everything from duty rosters to political manifestos, before crashing for almost twenty-six hours. It wasn't a Bajoran thing, it was a habit she hadn't shaken since being in the resistance. She was used to running on no sleep and then snatching as much of it as she could all at once. 

On the other hand, Nerys had early shifts all week, and she didn't like to be groggy. If she was asleep, she'd be curled tight on her side of the bed, and when Jadzia lay next to her, she'd stiffen for a moment before rolling over and curling up against her. She was pliant in sleep, warm and accepting of physical affection. 

Jadzia thought she'd struggle to cope with either Nerys: the wakeful one, pacing the apartment, willing to talk, but only about politics, or the gentle, sleeping one, making Jadzia think about the relationship she was afraid she'd damaged. 

She missed Lenara too. She couldn't help it. 

Hazy with tiredness and alcohol, Jadzia sat on the floor in Odo's quarters, and avoided all of it. Odo was walking slowly around his room, touching the sculptures and plants he'd collected. He had no furniture, no tables: nothing humanoid. Jadzia discovered she liked that. It was interesting to be separated from the needs of other species, to see how Odo subsisted only on beautiful shapes. 

“So, Dax,” he said suddenly. “How was your evening? Did you spend it all with Quark?”

“I had dinner with Benjamin and Jake. Benjamin made a delicious meal, but he seemed worried, distracted. Jake, too.” 

Odo gave his gruff, snorting laugh. “I'm sure Jake was distracted.” 

“Why? Has Nog encouraged him to smuggle cargo?”

Odo looked away. “Nothing like that. I shouldn't have said anything.”

Jadzia knew she shouldn't, but pushed anyway. “You have to tell me now: you've made me curious.” 

“It's not for me to say. You humans are very peculiar about this kind of thing. You talk about it all the time, but you get embarrassed about it.”

“Sex?” Jadzia said. “Is that what you mean? I'm not human: I don't get embarrassed.” She paused, realising. “Oh my, is little Jake Sisko having _sex?_ ” 

“You don't get awkward about it? Then why are you here and not with Major Kira?”

Jadzia sighed. “You should call her Nerys. You two are so close.”

“I prefer to address her formally.” 

“You talk to her more than anyone else.” 

Odo looked away from her. She knew it was a gesture he'd learnt from other humanoids, a way to express that he didn't want to talk further. 

Jadzia bit her lip. “I wonder if Benjamin knows about the sex. I'm not sure he could cope.” 

“Captain Sisko is a remarkably open-minded man.”

“He is.” Jadzia smiled. “But it's different when it's your baby.”

“But Jake is an adult.”

“When they're your children, they're always babies in a way.” Jadzia thought of her own children, all of Dax's children. “Trust me.” 

“It's just another thing I won't understand.” Odo stopped walking, his hand on one of his sculptures. 

“You might understand it one day.”

“I won't have children, I—” He coughed. “Don't pretend I'm one of you, Dax. I'm not.” 

She stood up. He looked pained, eyes down, and she took one of his hands. “You're entirely different from me,” she said gently. His skin felt strange to her: cool and velvety. More like the feet of a gecko than humanoid skin. 

He looked at their joined hands, but didn't pull away. “Yes.” 

“Do you see with your skin, as well as your eyes?” she asked suddenly. “Do your eyes work like mine?”

He backed away from her, seeming to fold in on himself. “Ask Dr Bashir. He has all my files.” 

“I'm sorry. I'm a scientist, too.”

“I don't trust scientists.” 

“Do you trust anyone?” Jadzia asked. 

He swallowed—Human, again. Jadzia thought it must be a lot of work to maintain all these mannerisms that did not come naturally to him. She wondered if she could ask him about it. 

After a moment, Odo said, “Major Kira.” 

Jadzia smiled. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, me too.” 

“Even though she's upset you?”

Jadzia thought about Lenara's smile, Lenara's earrings, and Kira's shape next to her in the dark. She shouldn't impose herself on Odo like this—but she couldn't impose herself on Keiko either. “No. Well. _I've_ upset her.” 

“Ah.” Odo turned away from her, looking towards the stars with unseeing eyes. 

“It's... I... It's complicated.” 

“Another humanoid thing I won't understand.”

Jadzia touched his arm again. His uniform felt as cool and strange as his skin. “I've never heard you sound so bitter. And that's saying something.” 

“I can't join the Great Link,” Odo said. “I can't be one of the changelings. But I can't be one of you, either.” 

“It must be very lonely.” 

“Yes.” 

Jadzia took his arm and he allowed himself to be dragged to the window. She drew him down next to her beneath the stars. “We'll figure out a way to make you less lonely.”

“I doubt it, Dax.” 

“Some of my former hosts have been so lonely. Even Audrid, even though she loved her family, her job. She never felt at home in the world...”

“It's not like that.” 

She took his hand. “What is it like?”

“You can't even imagine, you...” Odo gripped her knee. “You think when you have an argument with your romantic partner, that's loneliness. You think when you can't talk to a friend on an away-mission, that's loneliness. You don't know what it's like to always be alien, for everything around you to be wrong, to not know how to touch anyone, to see every pore of everyone's skin but to not even understand what you are...”

Dax touched the sharp, strange curve of his face. He let her. “Oh Odo,” she said. “You're not as out of place as you think.” 

“I am. I'm stranger than you know. I'm not even... I'm nothing like you. I don't have a body. I follow the rules because I don't know any other way to be, but I'm not one of you.” 

She leant forward and kissed his temple. It was soft and cool and light like everything else about him. She felt cold, suddenly, too. What was she doing? If she was afraid she'd hurt Nerys by her feeling for Lenara, how on Earth would Nerys feel her touching Odo? 

“What are you doing?” he snapped, echoing her thoughts. 

“You're too closed off from everyone,” Jadzia said. “You're following rules, but they're the wrong rules.” She bit her lip. “So am I. I've been trying so hard to act like a human or a Bajoran, but I'm a Trill and I can't... I'm afraid I'm never going to be able to stop myself from needing more than one person.” 

“I struggle to understand how you humanoids can cope with even _one_ person.” He was drawing away from her. She touched him again, fingers on his body, on the cloth that wasn't cloth. What did it feel like to him? She'd have to find a way to ask. She wanted to show him he wasn't alone. 

“Have you kissed anyone, Odo?” The question surprised her. Her voice came out raw, husky. 

“Yes. It was wet and horrible. What are you doing, Commander?” 

She put her hand on his shoulder, light, not pressuring him to stay. “Odo, I don't want to make you uncomfortable. But I'd like to kiss you, to show you don't have to hold yourself so far away from everyone. It's something we humanoids do to feel just a little bit closer to someone else. We're both following the wrong set of rules.” 

“But—”

“You don't have to worry about Nerys. We—we don't have the traditional relationship you've read about in Starfleet manuals.” 

“That wasn't what I was going to ask.” Odo faced her again. His lips were parted. She wondered if his tongue would feel as cool and light as the rest of him. “This is very strange. I don't see how it will help.” 

“Just let me try this. If you hate it, we can stop.” 

Jadzia framed his face in her hands. He was leaning toward her, almost growing towards her. He was eager—Jadzia was glad to see the eagerness, to see she wasn't scaring him. What do you think you're doing Dax? she asked herself, but Odo wasn't pulling away, he was leaning toward her, curious, and she wanted... She wanted to make both of them feel less alone. 

She was glad now that synthehol wore off so quickly—that now she was only running on adrenaline and affection. His lips were cool against hers, unmoving but pliant. She touched him gently with her own, thinking that for everything she'd said about finding new rules, kissing him like this was really very traditional. He was quiet and still, and then he began to move with her, gentle and stumbling. She let his tongue, his strange, cool tongue, touch the inside of her mouth. 

They kissed until she was panting. He didn't breathe at all. 

She ran her fingers through his hair. He looked so vulnerable, felt so tender—it almost frightened Jadzia. She was not used to touching someone so naïve. 

“Oh, Odo,” she breathed. “I need to go home and sleep. I have an early shift.” She sighed. She felt, suddenly, that she had to put distance between them. Perhaps Odo needed to protected from her, too. “But you will meet me tomorrow evening, and we'll talk more.” 

He was silent, and the silence stretched so long it frightened her. And then he nodded, once, curtly, and she slowly, stiffly, stood up. 

She walked blearily back to her quarters. Nerys was asleep. Jadzia kicked her clothes off and let them fall on the floor, before curling up behind Nerys in their bed. Nerys sighed, stirred, and pressed back against her. She was warm, and smelt of lilacs. Voice husky with sleep, she said, “What have you been doing all this time?”

“Kissing Odo.” 

Kira sighed slowly through her nose. Jadzia wondered if this would upset her. But just she took one of Jadzia's hand and pressed it against her chest. Jadzia could feel Nerys's heart against her palm. Nerys said, “Don't hurt him, Dax.” 

ODO 

Even the few hours in his bucket didn't soothe him. He was hardly ever so anxious it transferred to his gelatinous state. Did Dax really think she was making things better?

Perhaps she did. 

The Major came into his office, a whirlwind of lipstick and energy, before he'd come close to figuring out what to do. 

She spoke first. Her voice was surprisingly gentle. “Odo, I need your...”

“Kira, I... Dax was...”

She smiled, then, quickly.“Don't worry about that.” She came and leant against his desk, and he felt suddenly relaxed—comfortable with her in a way he wasn't with anyone else. She said, “I needed to ask you for a favour. It's about... my brothers.” 

“I didn't know you had a brother.”

“I don't. I mean, I do, but... I haven't seen them since I was a child. My father and I got separated from them during the Resistance. For a long time, I'd thought they were dead.” She lowered her voice, though her tone remained flat. “I know so many dead people. It was easier to be angry than to think about them.” 

Odo nodded. “I understand.” 

“Do you? I haven't told anyone else because I was... I was afraid they wouldn't understand how I could have family out there and not be looking for them. Can you imagine... Can you imagine Sisko not looking for Jake?” 

“The other Bajorans would understand.” 

Kira sighed. “Maybe. Sometimes I'm... Sometimes I think I'm not like anyone.” 

Dax had intimated something similar last night, but it was completely different when Kira said it. Odo said, “That's what makes you such good company.” 

“Oh, Odo.” Kira sighed. She came closer, leaning against the desk beside him. The screens glowed idly between them. “Dax is... Jadzia is having a hard time right now.” 

Odo nodded. The relaxation flooded away at once. 

“She thinks I'm... distracted because of something she did, but... it's not about that. It's about feeling at home here on this Cardassian station. It's about not knowing how to talk to my own people. I almost forgot I had brothers, Odo, I...” She drummed her hands against her thighs. “I need to talk to Jadzia. I'm only telling you because... she can be reckless, and she might hurt you.”

He looked away, not knowing the words. He thought about the hurt in her own voice, the depth of emotion she tried to hide by keeping her tone flat. At last he said, “You are kind to mention it, Major.”

She let her breath out, in a sigh so long it was almost a moan. “No, Odo. I'm not kind at all.” 

He wanted to disagree with her, but he didn't. “How can I help you with your brothers?”

“I can't find them on the central database. I'm not sure how to begin looking for them. I don't even know if they go by our name any more. I don't know if they're alive. But I'd like to... I'd like to know, one way or the other.” She sighed. “You have contacts too. I was wondering if you'd help me with this. It's not station business, I know, but...”

“I'll help you,” Odo cut in at once. Of course he would help her. It wasn't even a question. “I know a couple of Bajorans who are good at finding missing people. They're usually looking for criminals, but they can look for your brothers, too.”

“ _They_ might be criminals too.” 

“Like you were.” 

Kira smiled. “Like I was. They weren't in the resistance, though, or if they were, not for long. I'd know.” 

“Give me more details about them,” Odo said. “Younger or older?”

Kira sat on the desk, too close to the screens for comfort, but Odo couldn't bring himself to tell her to sit properly, in the chair, and not to lean so close to him. He felt like he could smell her all over his body, in every unnecessary pore on his skin. 

“They were—are—Kira Reon and Kira Pohl. Pohl wasn't much more than a baby the last time I saw him; Reon was six. The boys were all taken while we were sleeping. We didn't wake up in time to save them. We never knew what they were doing with them. My father took me away not long after that.” She wound her hands together. “He probably saved my life.” 

“I'll look, Major,” Odo said. 

Kira nodded. “It would be strange,” she said, “To find out I'm not the only one left.” 

“That is a strange thing to find out,” Odo said. “To think you are alone and then to realise you're not alone.” 

“Not always a happy thing, either,” Kira said. She put her hand on his arm, and he felt himself, his whole body, reaching for her, like he was a plant and she was a sun. “I'm on duty in five minutes. But we can talk more, Odo.” 

Everyone wants to talk to me suddenly, Odo thought. What do they think it will achieve? 

“I will let you know as soon as I find anything out.”

She smiled at him, and suddenly he was imagining her lips, curved into a smile just like that, but pressed against his skin, like Dax's had been the night before. 

When she was gone, he imagined Kira and Dax by a window, their faces close, their hands entangled. Their mouths meeting. That soft, exploring sensation he'd felt with Dax last night. The intimacy of two bodies pressed so close. The image made him ache, though not in painful way: it was a hollowness, though no part of his body was hollow. 

He thought such an image would make a humanoid aroused. He knew about humanoid anatomy, he knew what they did together. He'd seen pictures of their bodies entwined. He'd never felt the need to grow genitals; he was smooth and there was no part of his anatomy that expressed sexual arousal. 

And yet. And yet he ached. 

He left the desk: he suddenly felt too enclosed in the office. He felt strange, unsteady, as though he wasn't quite in control of his shape. He needed some time before he could talk to his sources, could look for Kira's brothers. 

The promenade was busy: mainly Starfleet here to discuss the Dominion threat. A Klingon merchant argued with a Ferengi. Despite the crush, Odo spotted Jake Sisko easily, sitting alone at a table near the jumja stick vendor, writing on his PADD. 

Odo saw Nog before Jake did. Nog was walking towards Jake with his quick, cramped gait. And then Jake looked up and spotted Nog, and his whole face lit up. Odo saw his feet move under the table, as though he could barely wait for Nog to get to him, as though he wanted to run to meet him. 

Damn them, Odo thought. How could they be so ridiculously attached to each other? How could they see so much in each other? How could they know so exactly what they needed?

He felt like he was being haunted by them. 

DAX

Jadzia met Bashir for lunch at the replimat. “You look very handsome,” she told him honestly. 

“Don't flirt with me, Jadzia,” he said. 

“I'm just telling you the truth. Did you do something different with your hair?”

He coughed. “I've been working out a bit more lately. Trying to build some muscle mass.” 

She laughed. “The long, lean look suits you, Julian. Trust me.” 

“That's just a kind way of saying I'm perpetually scrawny.” 

“Don't try to make me give you more compliments: you know you're attractive. What would you like for lunch?”

They settled into easy conversation until Jadzia asked, “Are Odo's medical files closed, or are there any open studies?” 

“There are—why do you ask?”

He said it easily, but Jadzia suddenly felt guilty. Why did she ask? Because Odo made her curious? “It seems strange, doesn't it, that our friend and colleague is a case study and valuable scientific asset.” 

“It is strange,” Julian agreed. He leant towards her, lowering his voice, “It is _fascinating_ though, everything about Odo's physiology is fascinating. All the reports I've written have been received so enthusiastically by Starfleet Medical. I even had a fan letter from a cadet recently!” 

“I'd love to know more about how it feels to be Odo. What it's like to be made of something entirely different from us humanoids. How does his sensory system work, do you know? He can't taste: can he smell?”

Julian took a bite of his salad and chewed slowly. “I've asked him those kinds of things—he's very reticent. Most of my studies have focused on the nature of his cells. It seemed to make his less uncomfortable.”

“I suppose it's less invasive.” She sighed. “He's such a private person.”

“I can give you all the reports I have, Jadzia,” said Julian. “Do you think they'll help with your current research?”

If only it was as innocent as that, Jadzia thought. If only I was just exploring new angles of research. “It's all right,” she said. “I suppose if I have any specific questions I should ask Odo himself.” 

ODO

Dax had said her relationship with the Major wasn't traditional, like the ones he'd supposedly read about in Star Fleet manuals. He had, from time to time, read about humanoid relationships. He'd accessed restricted files so he could discover something about sexuality, and, finding the official reports too clinical, he'd turned to erotic novels and romances. It had all left him entirely cold—he felt more alone reading those stories than he did at almost any other time. 

Now he reopened files that he'd long kept closed, and began, once more, to research. 

He'd already put out feelers on Bajor, searching for Kira's brothers. He had a contact who'd once worked for the Cardassians and always knew how to find out about the dead, even the dead whose deaths the Cardassians would rather have hidden. And he had another contact who could find almost anyone who had ever used a fake identity chip. 

There were security reports to write for Starfleet, but those could wait. If he kept producing reports for them on time, they'd come to expect it, and would start to badger him if he was only a day or two late. As it was, he liked to concentrate on keeping the station running smoothly and writing to Starfleet only when it suited him. 

So he turned his attention again to erotic novels—which left him cold, once more. Perhaps they were the wrong erotic novels. Perhaps Dax could advise him. He looked, instead, at reports from Starfleet. Some people in the science division seemed almost exclusively interested in the sexual practices of other races, and their reports were so detailed that Odo suspected their research had been very hands-on. There was plenty of information about families and relationship that were not monogamous—but that was no surprise to Odo. He'd met Bolians before, after all, and even some Bajorans who still practised more old-fashioned polyamorous relationships. And, of course, there was Dax. It had simply never seemed relevant before. Now he wondered how it would feel—would trying to love two humanoids be any harder than loving one? 

His mind was filled, suddenly, with Kira's form, the ease he felt around her. He wondered if he could turn his attention to Dax, but his mind was full of Kira. 

A screen on his right chirruped, and he went to answer it. The call was from the former Cardassian worker. The discussion was brief, and grim, and Odo downloaded the file onto his PADD. 

He read it twice, and then contacted Kira. “Major,” he said, “Are you on duty?” 

“For another twenty minutes,” Kira replied. “Why?”

Odo heard a brief, distorted discussion over the Comm, and then Kira said she'd be with him in ten minutes. 

He found himself pacing, uncertain of how to react to the message. A humanoid would know what to do. Should he contact Dax, too? But no, it wasn't her business. Kira had come to him alone, and the least he could do was respect her need for privacy. 

“It's not good news,” he said, when she came in, five minutes later. She looked collected, but the fact that she'd turned up so quickly made him sure she was anxious. 

“I expected that,” she said. She was trying to be calm, but underneath the veneer, Odo could see her hands trembling slightly. 

He handed her the PADD and sat at his desk. She remained standing, eyes flicking up and down. The file began with a brief description of Kira Reon, and the date of his death. Beneath, were the words, _Died due to medical research in line of duty for Cardassian Union._ At the bottom, _Details of experimentation attached._

She didn't have to read the attached files. But Odo knew she would. Odo had read them too. He was imagining certain choice phrases appearing in Kira's mind; he imagine her dreaming of a small Bajoran boy, on a Cardassian research compound, screaming and alone. 

Kira read slowly, she always did. She'd never had much need to read before arriving on the station. She was better at interpreting graphs and remembering oral instructions. So Odo had plenty of time to watch her, to see her reactions, to see how her face seemed to become thinner, more drawn. 

She looked up at him, suddenly tight with anger. “There's no mention of Kira Pohl,” she said. 

“No.” 

“Would you—your contact have access to all the research facilities? Is it possible Pohl wasn't killed there, too?” 

“Yes. It is possible. You said he was an infant when he was taken?”

“Two, I think,” Kira said. She twisted her mouth. “I know what you're thinking. Too much effort to look after him. Perhaps they just killed him straight off.”

“That's not what I'm thinking. The Cardassians didn't routinely kill infants. He didn't necessarily die in a research facility.”

Kira sat down suddenly. She wrapped her arms around her chest. “It's a horrible way to die.” 

“Yes.”

“Even if Pohl didn't die that way, he suffered.” 

“Yes.” 

Kira was quiet for a long time, staring at the PADD. Then she handed it back to Odo. “Will you save this file?”

“Of course.” 

She was quiet while Odo put the PADD away and remained still for so long that Odo began to wonder if he should start writing up those reports for Starfleet. Then she reached across the table and took Odo's hand, suddenly, in her own. She gripped it tightly. “I'm glad you're not trying to comfort me.”

“I am trying to help,” Odo said. “I just don't know how.”

Kira smiled, grim, gripping him. “You're doing well.” 

DAX 

“Tell me about Lenara,” Nerys said, when Jadzia got in. “You've been wanting to. Tell me now.” 

Nerys was curled on the couch, various PADDs spread out around her. She was holding a glass of voodai in one hand, and her fingers trembled slightly. 

“You look terrible,” Jadzia said.

Nerys closed her eyes for a second. “I...” She bit her lip, and for a moment Jadzia thought she was going to cry. Was she really this upset about Lenara? Now? “I need you to take my mind off something. Trust me. Tell me about Lenara.” 

Jadzia took off her uniform jacket. She sat down on the sofa next to Nerys, and pulled Nerys's feet into her lap. Nerys was wearing pale socks, and her soles were coloured by the imprint of her boot. Jadzia squeezed Nerys's foot once, gently. 

“Torias...” Jadzia swallowed. “I have to start with Torias, that's the only way this story can go.”

“OK.” Nerys sipped her drink, and the glass clinked against her teeth. The voodai missed her mouth and slid down her chin instead. She turned her head away. “You've told me about Torias before, but you can tell me again.” 

“Torias was mostly attracted to men before Nilani,” Jadzia began. 

Nerys said, “Men, eh? How perverted,” and laughed, and the laughter made her, for a moment, look like her old self again. 

“He liked sex almost more than I do. No one person could ever be enough for him. He was so cocky and self-assured, but he loved men who could take that away from him, even if only briefly. Nilani wasn't like that, but she wasn't overly impressed by him, either. She thought he was an arrogant dick most of the time.”

“I like her already.” Nerys drained the voodai but kept the glass in her hands, playing with it. 

“She would've liked you. I'm sure Lenara would've liked you too, if she'd got to know you.” Jadzia paused, swallowed. There was a bitterness, a pain, in her throat, when she thought about Lenara. “Torias loved it when Nilani told him what she thought of him: that he wasn't as clever as he thought he was, and that he had more courage than sense. And he loved her, and he wanted to be what he thought she needed: reliable, kind, thoughtful. Challenging, too, but also those things.” 

“And he wasn't.”

“He died before he could figure out whether or not he could be all Nilani needed.” Jadzia squeezed Nerys's foot. “We've been together longer, now, than they were. Torias was constantly surprised by Nilani, how clever she was, how enthusiastic. How she could see straight through him. She worried he'd get bored of her, he knew that, but he worried that _she'd_ get bored of him. He never told her that.” 

“And then he was reckless and stupid and got himself killed,” Nerys said. 

“Yes.”

“Sounds a bit like me.”

Jadzia squeezed her foot again. “You're complete opposites. I think you'd hate each other.” 

“I know about Torias and Nilani.” Nerys put the drink down, and folded her arm around herself. “What about Jadzia and Lenara?” 

“We had more in common than Torias and Nilani ever had. When we were together, I felt so close to her. I wanted to be with her, I wanted to protect her, I wanted to show her I could be everything Torias couldn't be...”

She met Nerys's eyes for the first time. “You know when you meet someone, and the connection's there right away? It's like they're more brightly lit than anyone else in the world. When you see them from a distance, it's hard not to run towards them.”

Nerys smiled, a grim, tight smile. “I know something about that.” 

“That's how I feel with you. And with Lenara. With you it grew, slowly at first, and then I knew I wanted... I knew I wanted you so much. With Lenara it was like being punched in the kidneys, and I do enough Klingon martial arts to make that simile accurately.” 

“I imagine it was more painful when Lenara walked away.” 

“Yes.” Jadzia looked down at her hands, at Nerys's feet in her lap. “I had all these plans, about you and Lenara, and how we'd make it work, all three of us. I worried you wouldn't like each other, I worried you'd resent me, I worried you'd both end up hating me, but I...”

“You wanted a chance for it to all fall apart.” 

“Yes.” Jadzia squeezed Nerys's feet tight. 

“Have you considered that you're lucky it didn't?” 

“Yes.” Jadzia rubbed her eyes. She told herself not to cry, but her eyes were hot and sore with tears. 

“Oh, Dax,” Nerys said softly, and leant forward and wrapped her arms around Jadzia's shoulders. Jadzia clung to her suddenly, burrowed her face into Nerys's familiar chest and whispered, “I was so afraid you'd hate me.”

Nerys tangled her fingers in Jadzia's hair. “I don't hate you. I wasn't even jealous. You can have other partners, if you like. If that's what you need. But if it's Julian we should probably discuss it first.”

Jadzia snorted. “It won't be Julian. Damn it, Nerys, you're everything. Why do I want other people?” 

“It's just the way you are, Jadzia.” Nerys's fingers still moved softly, soothingly, through Jadzia's hair. “I'm sorry your first experiment in polyamory didn't go the way you'd hoped.” 

“I... Thanks, darling,” Jadzia said. 

Nerys covered her eyes with her hands, an uncharacteristic gesture. Then she looked straight at Jadzia and said, “Did I ever tell you about my brothers?” It was a simple question, but she made it sound like a challenge. 

Jadzia shook her head. “I didn't know you had brothers. This isn't going to be a happy story, is it?” She squeezed Nerys's foot again. 

“That's not how my stories go.” Nerys rearranged them so she was sitting up, with Dax leaning against her side. She kept her arm around Jadzia's shoulder, warm and solid. 

And then Nerys told her everything she knew about her brothers. It didn't take long. 

Jadzia found she was crying again, or perhaps she'd never stopped. Don't, she kept thinking to herself, scrubbing at her eyes. This is the wrong reaction. Nerys should cry, not me. 

“Pohl might still be alive,” Jadzia said at last. 

“Pohl might not have died quite so horribly,” Nerys countered. 

“Fuck.” Jadzia dabbed at her face desperately. “Why am I the one crying?” 

“Because I don't want to cry. I just want to smash things.” 

Jadzia smiled shakily. “Now that's something I can help you with,” she said. It didn't take as much convincing as she'd expected to get Nerys to go to the holosuite. They beat up some large and angry Klingons. 

ODO

Mora Pol swaggered into his head as though he owned the place. Perhaps, Odo thought, he did. Odo looked like him, Odo had known him before he had known anyone else. Odo had grown a face like his because that was the only face he knew. 

If he'd seen a Klingon first, perhaps he'd have grown a ridged forehead. 

If he'd known a woman first, he wouldn't be a man. 

It was a strangely chilling realisation. He was living his life this way because he happened to have been studied by a particular scientist. There are worse people to emulate, Odo thought. And there are better people. 

He imagined being found by Dax instead of Dr Mora. If he had been found by Dax he would laugh more, and have long dark hair. And she would probably have named him something else. Some ridiculous, Trill name. 

He snorted, thinking of it. Dr Mora had laughed often. He was Odo, whoever found him. He would never have laughed very much. 

Dax had said she would come to talk to him, but she didn't, and he was glad. Instead, he went to his quarters, and changed his form, again and again and again, until he was dizzy with it. Until he was drunk on it, and, as an Andorian wolf, he opened his wide jaws and laughed and laughed and laughed. 

DAX 

“I don't feel so tense now,” she said to Keiko. “I hadn't realised how tense I was feeling.” 

Molly was lying on her stomach, drawing a series of pigs. Keiko kept reaching down to stop the drawing spreading off the paper and onto the carpet.

“No,” Molly said. “I need it to be bigger.” 

“I can give you another piece of paper, but it can't go on the carpet.”

Molly sat up. “Why not?” 

“Because I said so.”

“Why?” 

Jadzia laughed and knelt down next to Molly. “Because pigs don't live on carpets. Why don't we use this piece of green paper, and they can be in a forest?”

Molly wrinkled her nose, suspicious. Jadzia picked up one of the markers and scribbled some trees onto the top of the paper. Audrid had enjoyed drawing, but Jadzia wasn't any good at it. “And the pigs go here?” Molly said, pointing to the trees. 

Jadzia nodded. “Pigs like living under trees. They eat the nuts that fall on the ground.” 

After a few moments of quiet drawing, Keiko said, “So it was a good conversation with Major Kira?”

“I feel like a different person now,” Jadzia said. “We went to the holosuite yesterday and defeated six Klingons together. It felt like old times.”

Keiko laughed. “You have a funny way of making up.”

“Hearing about her brothers, though...” Jadzia sighed and drew a squirrel in one of the trees to distract herself. 

“It's unthinkable,” Keiko said. 

“Except Kira had to think about it all the time.” 

Jadzia's combadge chirped. Nerys's voice was small, clipped. “Can you meet me outside Odo's office? I'm not on duty, it's...”

“I'm coming,” Jadzia cut her off. 

Keiko nodded, standing up to see her out, but Molly stared up at her, annoyed once more. “You can't leave! We were having fun.”

“I'll draw with you again soon,” Jadzia said, and suddenly wished she could stay. Her stomach was tight with anxiety again, and she was sure she was going to learn about another dead sibling. She touched Molly's head, and Keiko smiled and told her to visit again soon, and then Jadzia was rushing down the corridor to find Nerys, her body heavy with dread. 

“I couldn't go in alone.” Nerys was pacing outside Odo's office, face pale and tight, arms wrapped around herself. 

“I know,” Jadzia said. She took Nerys's hand and laced their fingers together. Nerys's skin was cool and clammy. 

“You've got coloured pen on your face,” Nerys said suddenly. 

“I always get messy when I draw,” Jadzia said. “I was with Keiko, and Molly.”

“Oh.” Nerys ducked her head. “Well, you look strange. I'm sorry to drag you away.” 

“I want to be here.” Jadzia squeezed her hand. She looked at Odo's office. Odo was in there, calmly looking at a report. “Are you ready to go in?”

Nerys nodded, face white, and stepped forward. 

Odo looked up at them, and smiled, his strange, grim smile. “Better news than last time.”

“He didn't die in a research camp?” Nerys asked. 

“He's not dead,” Odo said. 

She let go of Jadzia's hand. “What?” 

“I found his name on an adoption certificate. It was changed from Kira Pohl to Doru Pohl two months after the occupation ended.” 

“He was _adopted_?” Nerys repeated. 

“I didn't think to look at adoption files. There have been a number of adoptions for war orphans, of course, but rarely someone as old as Pohl...”

“Can we contact him?” Jadzia asked. 

“Of course,” Odo said. 

Nerys sat down, heavily. “We can contact him,” she repeated wonderingly. 

Odo looked at her. “Yes. We can contact him.”

She was blinking too much, gripping her knees. Jadzia knew that look. She imagined Nerys standing up and sweeping all the PADDs off Odo's desk, or throwing them at the wall. She imagined Nerys's harsh crying, her mouth open, wet and vulnerable. 

“Let's go back to our quarters,” Jadzia said. “Let's get a drink.”

Nerys swallowed, so hard it looked painful. “Odo should come with us.” 

“I...” Odo began, and then he stood up. Jadzia took Nerys's hand, and Odo followed them out. 

Once the door of their quarters swished shut behind them, Jadzia put her arms around Nerys. Odo was standing close behind them, silent. It should have felt awkward, but it didn't. Jadzia kissed Nerys's cheek, then her temple. “It's OK,” she said. 

Nerys was trembling. She stayed still for a moment, then she pushed Jadzia away. 

She went and knelt in front of her altar and pressed her fist against her mouth. Her eyes were open but unseeing. 

Jadzia wanted to go to her, to kneel next to her, but she knew she shouldn't. 

Instead, she took Odo's wrist, and said, “Sit down. I suppose I can't offer you a drink.”

“I don't need to sit,” he said. “My muscles don't get tired. I don't have muscles.” 

So Jadzia sat, and looked uselessly between them, between Odo's silent presence, and Nerys's. She watched Nerys's back, the hunched circle of it. It was surprisingly expressive. She could see it quiver when Nerys began to pray in Bajoran, and then shake when she began to cry. 

Jadzia left her alone, not sure she would be welcome, wondering if they should leave. She felt like she was intruding on Nerys's private grief, and yet Nerys asked them here, both of them.

Odo flowed suddenly into motion, moving for a second not like a humanoid, but as a creature made from something infinitely more flexible. He knelt next to Nerys, and she turned to him and pressed her face into his chest, and wept against him. She shook in his arms, and he held her, and held her. 

ODO

She stayed in his arms, even when she'd stopped crying. She was warm, radiating heat, and he could feel her muscles, the lines of her arms. He'd never held her like this before, though he'd wanted to. He'd wanted to hold her and know the shape of her, but it had always seemed impossible. 

He pressed his lips to the top of her head, like a humanoid. Her hair felt crisp and strange against his cells. “Odo,” she said, her voice wet with grief. “He's been there all this time, and I've never known.”

“We can contact him now,” Odo said. 

“What will I say? What can I possibly say?”

“He'll want to hear from you,” Dax said. “You'll both be awkward, but you'll learn how to talk to each other.” 

“How can he ever forgive me?” Kira said, into Odo's neck. Her breath was warm, and he wanted to hold onto that feeling, the feeling of Kira's breath on his body. 

“Forgive you for what?” Dax asked. 

“For what the Cardassians did.” 

They were both silent for a moment, and then Odo laughed. “Major...”

“I know,” Kira said, shaking her head. “I know. But I still want him to forgive me.”

“We all want things that don't make sense,” Dax said. She got off the couch, and came over to them, and touched Kira's back, and Kira reached out for her, and their hands clasped. Dax brought Kira's hand to her mouth, and kissed the knuckles. 

Odo nodded. “Sometimes I want impossible things.” 

Kira leant up and kissed Odo's temple. “What you want isn't impossible,” she said. 

He touched her cheek, amazed that his hand would do this, that he could touch Kira in such a way. He felt the dampness of her tears against his hand, and looked at her eyes, clear and raw. “What do I want?” he asked. 

Kira looked at Dax, and Odo looked at her too. Dax smiled. “You both make things too complicated.” 

Odo didn't know what to say to that. Kira didn't say anything either, but she pulled Dax closer to her, and Odo could feel both of them, their heat, against him. 

“I want to kiss you both,” Dax said. 

“You should,” Kira said. “You should kiss us both.” 

Odo thought about protesting. But there was nothing inside him that could protest. He only wanted to agree. He'd read so many reports about humanoid relationships, but none of them explained anything. There was only this, and he didn't know what to do, but Kira, in his arms, seemed equally lost, so he turned to Dax, and she pressed warm lips against his face, and he opened his mouth to her, he opened himself to her. 

She pulled away after a long moment, gasping. “I'm going to enjoy you not needing to breathe one day,” she said, and then she kissed Kira, and he watched them, their damp mouths pressed against one another's, the way their eyes shut, and Kira's fingers fanned along Dax's jawline. 

Then Kira leant up, and kissed his cheek, and Dax said, “Nerys doesn't really like men, you know. She only likes it when women kiss her.” There was laughter in her voice, and warmth, and he knew she didn't mean it unkindly. 

He touched Kira's cheek, gently, and said, not to change her mind, but just because it was fact, “I'm not a man.”

Kira caught her breath.“Odo, you are a man. Don't say you're not, it makes me feel like you don't value yourself.”

“I'm not a man, Major. What makes a person a man? The shape of their body? I don't have a shape. The way they feel about themselves? I'm don't feel like a man or a woman—how could I? How could that matter to something like me?” 

Dax touched his arm. Her voice was gentle, wondering, as she said, “Oh, Odo. We've been pushing and pushing you into the wrong shape.”

He shrugged. “The rules helped. I liked having rules for what I was. I like order.” 

Kira looked searchingly into his face. “You don't have to be anything you're not. But you... But you've always felt like a man to me.”

He looked up, aware, suddenly, that they were tangled together in front of Kira's altar. He thought the Prophets probably didn't mind. He said, “It's easier to give people that impression—I copied Dr Mora, and once everyone thought I was a man I didn't question it. Besides, I've only just started thinking about it properly. For so long, I was just existing, and now I can't stop thinking.”

“I know exactly what that's like,” Kira said slowly. 

He didn't say anything. The silence between them stretched. He'd never felt so comfortable in a silence before: a wordless understanding passed between them. 

Dax cut into it, saying, “It doesn't solve our immediate problem though. Odo wants to kiss Nerys; Nerys doesn't want to kiss him.”

As always Dax's understand of everything was so crude. Odo wondered how she could be so old and so stupid. “I've never said I want to kiss Nerys. I feel closer to her than I do to anyone else, but that doesn't mean I have to kiss her.” 

Kira smiled up at him. He could still see the marks of tears around her face, and he wondered if it was selfish to want anything from her now. But she was reaching for him. “Oh, Odo. I feel so close when I am with you. So safe. We fit together so well... But, Prophets help me, I don't want anyone other than Dax.” 

“I know,” Odo said. And he didn't mind. He touched her shoulders, feeling their narrow bones. “I don't want you, either, not like that.” 

“But you want more intimacy with Kira, don't you?” Dax said. 

Odo didn't know. He shook his head. 

“There is more than one way to be intimate,” Dax said. She was smiling at Kira. The smile was warm, intense, and Odo wasn't sure what it signified, but Kira shook her head slightly, and then smiled back. Dax kissed Kira's neck, her ear, and then went to her other side and gently nipped at her neck. Kira made a faint, breathy sound, that Odo had never heard before, but wanted to hear again. 

“What are you doing?” Kira said. 

“I love you, and I'm sorry I'm so....”

“You're going to apologize again for being Trill, and I don't want you to. You don't have to be monogamous with me for me to know you love me. I want you and Odo to be intimate if that makes you both happy.”

Dax reached over Kira's lap and took Odo's other hand. “Odo and I want you, too. Odo likes you much more than me.”

Odo didn't know what to say to that. He resented Dax, suddenly, for her openness, for her lack of tact, and the way everyone respected her for it when they didn't respect his own honesty. He coughed. “Crude,” he said to Dax, “And not true. I want to touch you, Dax, more than I've ever wanted to touch another solid. My cells want to to know yours so desperately.”

Kira laughed. She fixed her eyes on him, and he felt the warmth of her expression like a caress. “That's an interesting way of saying she's the most beautiful person you've ever seen.”

“Am I?” Dax was smiling now, open and guileless. 

Kira shook her head, smiling too. “You know you are.” 

Odo watched as Dax kissed Kira's neck again, and then her ear. “Here, or do you want to go to bed?”

Kira looked up, and Odo knew she was seeing her own altar, the bright, sacred place at the centre of her quarters. “Here,” she said. 

Odo watched as Kira spread out in front of Dax, and Dax eased Kira out of her clothes. Kira's naked skin was almost too much for him, he almost stood up and went away, but they were giving him this, Kira and Dax, and he wanted it, he wanted this intimacy so much. The ache inside him was so deep and so strong it seemed to hum, and the hum eased the pain and turned it into pleasure. 

He looked at Kira, and felt that his presence was vast, his gaze huge. He watched Dax kiss her white inner thighs, run her tongue along Kira's soft hairs, watched as Kira opened up to her, opened up and up. 

He listened, overwhelmed, to the soft sounds Kira made. 

Afterwards Kira reached out and took his hand. Dax turned to him, and said, with her knowing smile, “Your eyes on my back was one of the most arousing things I've ever experienced.” 

DAX

She kept thinking _kid_ when she looked at him. She had to remind herself he was an adult. They met at the house that belonged to his parents. The Bajoran sky was clear and blue, and the ground was lush with shrubs and flowers, dotted with glittering pools and rushing streams. Nerys said it was one of the richest provinces. 

They touched hands and faces, Bajoran style, and then Nerys and Pohl seemed unable to speak at all. Nerys glowered, and Pohl rubbed his wrists against each other, and stared at the ground, chain of his earring snaking against his skin. It was cool under the porch in front of the house, but warm in the sunshine. Pohl didn't invite them in, and his adoptive parents didn't come out. Jadzia guessed they were giving Pohl and Nerys space to get to know each other. 

Jadzia looked between them, and said, at last, “Should we go for a walk? It's such a beautiful day, and Nerys and I hardly ever have a chance to see the sunshine any more.” 

Pohl nodded, still not speaking. He held his hand up, gesturing them to wait, and went inside. They heard a faint clattering—perhaps the sound of pots and pans rattling against one another. Jadzia thought about telling Nerys to look less scary, and decided against it. 

He came back out, and coughed, and said, in a voice so light Jadzia had to strain to hear, “We should go towards the Gleery Woods. It's beautiful that way.” 

Nerys nodded, once, sharply, and Jadzia said, “That sounds perfect. You'll have to tell me more about the ecology of this part of your world. I'm a scientist, but I can be a bit of a novice when it comes to Bajor.” 

He nodded, eyes roaming curiously over her spots, and then looked quickly away. 

“It's not as wild around here as some parts of Bajor,” Nerys said. “Been cultivated for a very long time. Good, fertile land.” 

“I suppose you prefer it wild, do you?” Jadzia said. 

“I'm used to it wild. There's nowhere to hide in a place like this.”

It was beautiful—for a moment Jadzia was just glad to be outside, walking on the soft ground, flowers casting pale pollen into the morning light, green shadows beneath their feet. She heard an unknown bird call, and another, and something that was perhaps a frog. “How did all this survive the occupation?” 

“It didn't,” Nerys said. “But it's been easier to restore than other places. The climate's so gentle.” 

Pohl was walking slightly ahead of them, eyes down. His gait was awkward, he moved like he didn't quite fit his frame. Poor kid is terrified, Jadzia thought, and then remembered again that he wasn't a kid. 

“Do you enjoy living here, Pohl?” Jadzia asked. 

“Yes, I...” Pohl's voice trailed off again. His hands were trembling. “Yes I feel... lucky.” 

“How long have you been here?” 

“My... my parents and I were given accommodation here just after the occupation. But I lived here during the occupation, too.” He paused, brought his finger to his mouth and worried at the skin with his teeth. “It was different then.”

“Crawling with Cardassians,” Nerys supplied. 

Pohl nodded. He pointed along a narrow path, leading uphill. “There's a... There's a good view from up here.” 

“What did you do, during the occupation?” Nerys asked, suddenly, stopping dead in front of the path. It was a beautiful path, Jadzia thought, froths of white flowers growing alongside it. Pohl walked a few steps before he stopped, too. 

“I was sixteen when the occupation ended.” 

“I was twenty-six,” Nerys said. Her cheeks were flushed, but not from exertion. “What did they make you do, Pohl?” 

Pohl brought his finger back to his mouth, biting at his knuckle, sucking it between his lips. “I was a child.” 

Nerys nodded. “A lot of children had to do a lot of awful things.” 

Pohl tugged at his clothes, his hair falling over his eyes. Suddenly, Jadzia could see something of Nerys in his face: in the tilt of his nose, the line of his jaw. “The records say I was in medical but I... I don't remember it very well. Afterwards I worked in a clothes factory. Armour, really, for Cardassians. After that, it was the mines. I...” He sat down, suddenly, on the soft path, among the fronds of white flowers and tender leaves. He sat like a puppet whose strings had been broken, a tangle of limbs on the ground. He bit at his hand, at the skin by his thumb, and stared ahead of him, blank. 

Nerys was looking at him, her lips moving. “How bad was it?” 

Pohl shook his head. “Probably what you did was worse. You were in the Resistance, I know that. I didn't... I was just at the mines.” His voice wavered, his eyes looking forward, unseeing. Jadzia wanted to put her arms around him. Nerys was watching him, her hands folded tightly over her chest. 

“How long?” Nerys asked. 

Don't ask him, Jadzia thought. He can't think about it. She didn't know what, if anything, had happened to him, but she knew this was too much for him. 

Jadzia crouched down next to him. She wanted to touch him, but stopped herself. “It's OK,” she said softly. “We're not here to make you talk about these things.” 

She looked up at Nerys. She was pale too, and her eyes were hollow, hands fisted at her sides. Jadzia was thinking of the Nerys she'd known during the first year on the station. The woman who hoarded food because she was so afraid it of running out; the woman who was so fierce she could stare down a targ. That Nerys wanted something she could fight, something she could be angry with, because she didn't know how to speak to her little, frightened brother. 

And it made sense that Nerys was angry. It was wrong that she didn't know her brother, and that Pohl was sitting at her feet, hollow-eyed and lost. 

Jadzia thought of the way Nerys clung to her at night. She'd kissed every callous on Nerys's feet. She said, “Dearest. Go for a walk up the rise. Clear your head a little. I'll stay here with Pohl.”

Silence, and then Nerys nodded, and turned away. 

Jadzia moved closer to Pohl. He was still trembling. She waited with him, in the stillness, listening to unfamiliar birds. 

“I don't work now,” he said, suddenly, his voice rough. “If someone is trying to be my boss, I get so frightened. I can't take orders, I just, I remember them, and I...” He spread his fingers wide, grasping at the air. “I help my parents with the house, and our vegetables. They're old now, their... their real children were killed long ago.” 

Jadzia put her hand on his arm, lightly, waiting for him to flinch away. But he was still. She rubbed his shoulder, feeling the wings of his bones, feeling how thin he was. “Nerys will come back. She didn't mean to hurt you.”

“I know,” Pohl said. “She didn't... how was she supposed to know I'm like this?” He glanced at her, then his eyes flickered away. “I'm sorry, I... I've never seen an alien except for a Cardassian.” 

Jadzia smiled. “You can look as much as you like.”

His eyes met hers, and then danced over her hairline, following her spots. “Does it... Does it get lonely, in space?” 

He was still trembling under her hand. “I like being in space. I always have. I like knowing there is so much around me; I like being so close to exploration, to discoveries. I'm always one of the first to know about things on the other side of the wormhole. And up there, I'm part of a crew, I'm part of a group of people working to make that space station continue to run. I don't feel lonely at all.” 

He hugged his torso. “I like the sound of that. I've never been to space.”

“You can come, you can visit it us on Deep Space Nine. I can take you out, on a shuttle.” Jadzia looked up in time to see Nerys coming back down the hill. She had green stains on her knees—she must have been kneeling—and her make-up was streaked around her eyes. 

Jadzia wanted to hug her too, to protect both of them. Audrid was always the one who wanted to protect those she loved most desperately, but right now it was all of her, all of Dax, wanting to comfort these two Bajorans. She smiled at Nerys and said,“I was just telling Pohl about Deep Space Nine. He's never left the atmosphere.” 

Nerys's face struggled towards an answering smile. “I'm not an explorer by nature, like Jadzia. But it is beautiful, up there.” 

Pohl looked up through his hair, at Nerys. She knelt down beside him. Jadzia touched Nerys's arm, squeezed her wrist. 

“Pohl,” Nerys said. “I didn't come here to upset you. I'm sorry. I think I'm... I think I'm able to cope with certain things, and then I come back to Bajor, and it's all so fresh.” 

“I know,” Pohl said. “That's how I feel too.” 

Nerys sighed. “It's hard. It's really hard for all of us.” 

Pohl nodded. He hugged himself close. “Everyone else gets better from the occupation,” Pohl whispered. “But I stay the same.” 

Nerys coughed. There were tears around her eyes, but she wasn't looking at him. “We all feel that way.” 

He sucked at his hand. “Everyone else is so competent, and I'm so broken.” 

Nerys made a faint, gasping sound. She took his hand gently from his mouth, and held it in hers. She leant closer to him, her voice breaking, “I should never have let you get lost.” 

He shrugged, letting her fingers dig into his hands. “You were a child, too.” 

Nerys kissed his forehead, gripped his shoulder. Jadzia stood up carefully. They looked small there, two similar faces, two angular bodies, fitting close together. 

“I'm going to go back to the house,” Jadzia said. Neither of them looked at her, but Nerys nodded. 

Jadzia walked slowly down the hill, between the sparkling streams and soft, white flowers, leaving the brother and sister to grieve under the blameless Bajoran sky. 

JAKE 

“Odo is stalking us, I swear,” Nog said, trying to hide behind his root beer. 

“He is not,” Jake said, “You're so paranoid. Odo doesn't care.” 

“He's always around,” Nog said. “He knows about us.”

Under the table, Jake pressed his leg up against Nog's. Nog was warm, his leg dense and muscular. It made Jake think about the other day, when he'd had his head between Nog's legs, Nog's thighs against his shoulders. “So what if he does know about us?”

Jake looked across the tables. He could see Odo, up on the Promenade, looking down at them. Suddenly Odo's eyes met his. His face was as calm and unreadable as always. Then Odo raised his left hand, and waved, once. Jake waved back. 

“See? He's friendly,” Jake said. “My Dad likes him.”

Nog snorted. “Your Dad's not afraid of anyone,” he said, but he was pressing his leg up against Jake's, and he wasn't pulling away. 

ODO

“Even Kira seems to think that when I say I don't feel like I have a gender it means I don't exist.”

“She's just used to thinking of you as male,” Dax said, settling her feet in his lap. She radiated warmth. She seemed to like touching him, and Odo found that what she said about touch removing loneliness wasn't entirely untrue. “There are many, many species that don't have a gender binary.”

“But not Bajorans, or Trill.”

“That's not true.” Dax leant back against the wall and shifted her weight uncomfortably. “You have to get a bed in here. Anyway, joined Trill change from male to female bodies all the time. But gender isn't fixed, even for unjoined Trill. The symbionts are agender, and Trill don't always have a gender either. And humans, too—I've met humans who don't have a binary gender. I haven't known as many Bajorans, but I'm willing to bet they're not all male or female either.” 

Odo sighed. “Yes, I read about Humans. I've been reading a lot of reports about this.” 

“Does it help?”

He snorted. “No. You keep saying my feelings are like everyone else's, but I still feel entirely alone.” 

“What about sexuality?” Dax curled her toes in his lap. 

She was obsessed, Odo thought. “What about it?” 

“I enjoy exploring it with you, that's all,” she said. “I like the way you look at me, it's different from anyone else. And I love talking about sex.”

“Isn't Nerys's presence enough for you?”

“It's not about that.” Dax smiled. “I still want to talk about this with you. We've been having a lot of sex, she and I. She feels sad, I think.”

“Why would feeling sad make her want to have sex?” 

Dax leant forward his to kiss cheek. “Oh, sweetheart. There are lots of reasons to have sex.”

“Don't patronise me,” Odo snapped. “Tell me about sex, if you must, but don't patronise me.”

Dax took his hand and wormed around so she was leaning against his chest. He let her organise him like he was furniture. “Could you make yourself a bit softer?” she said. 

“I could, but I won't.” 

“So,” she lowered her voice slightly, looking up at him under her lashes. He knew she thought this was alluring. “What do you want to know about sex?”

He'd been thinking about it all afternoon, but it was still hard to answer. He'd been thinking about it since he'd seen Nog greeting Jake outside his office, and Jake had leant in and kissed Nog's forehead. Nog had turned away, anxious, and Jake had tried to reassure him. Odo had watched Jake's hand on Nog's arm, seen the way Nog started to smile, and then Nog had grabbed the PADD from Jake's hands, and dashed down the corridor, and Jake had run after him, yelling something, yet still smiling... and Odo wondered if it was different, when both partners were men. 

“I want to know about men,” Odo said. “Men having sex with each other.”

“Ah,” Dax smiled. “Excellent. May I ask why?”

“Do you have any direct experience of it?”

“Do I have any direct experience? I am offended on behalf of Torias and Curzon. Of course I have direct experience. What do you want to know?”

Odo shrugged and looked away from her. He didn't know what he wanted to know. She curled closer to him. His cells stretched towards her, still wondering what it was like to be Dax, how it would feel to learn her skin, her way of being. 

Dax kissed his chin, and then said, “Torias liked men a lot. It surprised him when he ended up with Nilani. She was very special to him. He loved to be fucked; he loved cock. Jadzia always finds that hard to believe: how anyone could enjoy touching a penis that much? Torias did though—and I think even Jadzia understands how you can yearn for that intimacy, how you can want to touch a particular part of someone. Nerys loves touching my pussy, she never gets sick of it.” Jadzia paused, drew in a breath, and Odo wondered if he should say something. But Jadzia went on, “Do you want me to tell you about something Torias did? Do you think that would help?”

“Yes,” Odo said, and closed his eyes, because looking at her was too much when he was already feeling her against him, all over him. “Tell me about sex.”

“Imagine you're Torias,” Jadzia said. “You're a tall, lanky Trill, very arrogant and your sex drive is very high, and you think you're beautiful, and you can't look at an attractive man without imagining his cock. You'd imagine his cock, big and hot in your hand. You'd want him to rub it against your face, your throat, and you'd lick it, taste it against your lips. Then maybe he'd turn you over, place that cock against the cleft of your ass.” 

Her voice had dropped, husky. She stopped speaking for a moment, and then began again, “Torias loved having a cock against his face, in his mouth. Torias liked being on his knees.”

Odo coughed. On his knees: he'd seen Bajorans kneeling before they were shot. He tried to replace the image with a young man, attractive, tall, perhaps a Trill version of Dr Bashir, kneeling in front of another man. He wasn't sure how to picture that man: he found he was picturing Dax, instead, as she was now, Jadzia, except with a cock, just like the ones he'd seen in pictures, long and reddish, jutting from just above her vulva. 

He bit his lip, not sure how he felt about that image. There was a strange, yearning ache inside of him. 

“A cock doesn't exactly feel good against your skin,” Jadzia said. “It doesn't feel that different from any other part of the anatomy, but the skin is softer, and it gets wet with pre-ejaculate, and it feels almost silky sometimes. And the underneath the silky skin, it's so hard. It's surprising, for a woman anyway, how hard it can be. When it touches your lips it feels so strange, so intimate. Torias loved kneeling, feeling that cock against his skin, reaching out to touch the salty tip with his tongue.” 

“Salty,” Odo repeated, the image of Dr Bashir with Trill spots kneeling at Jadzia's feet still in his mind. He saw Bashir reaching out, touching the cock with the tip of his tongue. Would he like that taste? 

“Odo, I'm not trying to tell you this is the only kind of relationship between men. There are as many different kinds of relationships between men as there are between men and women and everything in between...”

“I know,” Odo snapped, curving his arm around Jadzia's waist, feeling her warmth against his cells. He suddenly wanted to see her naked, to feel her living cells against his own. 

“Torias liked to feel like someone else was in charge—just during sex. He liked to give himself up, a little. He liked to be told what to do. He felt safer kneeling at someone's feet than he felt almost anywhere.” Jadzia's voice grew warm. “Nilani liked that so much. I wonder what Lenara would have felt...” 

Odo ran his tongue along the back of her neck. He wanted to know how she felt just there, and if her spots felt different from her skin. Jadzia made a low, purring sound in the back of her throat. 

“Torias liked someone's fingers in his ass.” Jadzia lowered her voice. “I like that too, and so does Nerys. It's so intimate, there are so many nerve endings there. Maybe we can teach your body to know how it feels.”

“I doubt it.”

“Imagine someone throwing Torias onto a bed. I'm remembering when it was Nilani, now, how pliant he was under her hands, but that's not what you want. There were so many men...”

“I'm imaging you and a man who looks like Bashir,” Odo said, “I'm imaging you with a cock.” 

Jadzia turned abruptly in his arms, so they were face to face. She settled in his lap so one of his legs was caught between both of her own. Her forehead rested against his, and he could feel her breath, hot and slightly damp, against him. “Fuck, that's a good image,” she said. “Who knew you could come up with that, Odo?”

“It's your influence entirely,” Odo said. 

“So...” Jadzia said, and he felt her grind down against his leg, the hot weight of her, “So I'm grabbing Torias—Torias or Bashir—by the shoulders, and I'm throwing him on the bed. He's an angular man, but I don't have to be gentle with him. He can take it. 

“You know how Torias feels? He's hot all over, his skin is burning, and he feels so naked, so small and exposed. I've just pulled my cock out of his mouth, and I'm rubbing his lips with my saliva and pre-cum. Torias can't balance when I grab him: he's stiff from kneeling. He tumbles face down on the mattress, face buried in the sheets. He rubs his cock against the bed. He's so hard and so naked and he doesn't feel like he has to be in control of his actions.” 

Odo bit his lip. “Then what?” 

“If it was me, and I had this needy little Trill who wanted so much? I'd slap his ass and tell him not to squirm to start with.” Dax grinned. “But he'd keep going, thrusting his cock into the sheets, and I'd want to scrape my fingers down his back, hard enough to leave marks.”

“Would he like that?” Odo imaging raised lines, a high keening. 

“Torias would.” She ground down against Odo's leg, once. “I'd tell him to stop moving; I wouldn't let him come first. I'd touch myself for a while, let him suffer, tell him not to move, and then I'd slick the cleft of his ass with lube. He'd love that, he'd feel so much, he'd be aching, pressing back against me. He'd be writhing, really, and I'd have to remind him to keep still.” 

She pressed closer, breath ghosting against his ear. “Should I put my cock in him?”

Odo coughed. “If you like.”

“Wrong answer. I'm not going to stick my cock in his ass, he's too wound up for that. I'm going to fuck the cleft of his ass though, I'm going to rut against him, and his going to thrust his little hole back against me, begging me to stick my fingers inside him.”

“Will you?”

“After I've come, maybe I will. I'm going to let him think I'm just leaving him there, though. I'm going to come against his back and leave him with my semen drying on his skin, hard and aching against the bed, wanting me so much it's all he can think about.” 

“You're a narcissist,” Odo whispered. 

“No. This is all about what Torias wants. He _wants_ to feel like I don't care about his pleasure, like I just want to leave him aching and needy. He wants to keep wanting and wanting and wanting until he can only think about two things: me and how much he _wants_.”

“And you solids enjoy that?”

“Torias does. Are you picturing it?”

“Yes.” Odo struggled to explain it. “You, looking calm and in control, like you look in Ops and Bashir underneath you struggling and flushed and... and wanting.”

Jadzia kissed his cheek, then his lips. “Yes. Yes exactly. You're a fast learner.”

“Are you going to allow him to climax?”

“I am,” she said. “Oh yes. I'm going to tell him to roll over and I'll be calm and collected, just like you say, my cock back in my pants, and Torias will be there, sweaty, covering in sticky come, his ass slick, his cock so hard he thinks he might die.

“I'll just look at him for a while, until he feels ashamed and defiant at the same time with me there staring at him, and then I'll tell him to masturbate until he comes.”

Her eyes were damp; she was flushed too, her spots dark against her skin. She seemed impossibly hot against him, a furnace in his arms. “Then will you leave him?”

“A needy boy like Torias?” Dax said. “No, definitely not. I'll help him clean up. Nilani liked to hold him after that, stroke his hair. He'd feel so loved, so contained by her arms. He'd be so calm, he'd feel like he was floating. Then he'd sleep.” 

Odo ran his thumb over the line of his jaw. “You solids, you love to sleep.”

Dax ran her hand down his side, over his stomach, then suddenly, briefly, cupped her fingers over his crotch. “Nothing there,” she said. 

“I could make genitals if I wanted to; I don't want to.” 

“I know.” Jadzia slid off him, and leant back against the wall. She unzipped her pants. “You can touch me if you want to.” 

“I just want to look,” Odo said. 

“Fuck.” Her fingers slid rapidly over her skin. “You have no idea how hot that makes me.” 

She lay on the floor, bucking her hips. Odo bent over her, staring down at her hands, her groin. 

“Oh, Odo,” she said, her breath raw. “Oh, fuck, Odo...”

He didn't feel alone at all. 

DAX

She was eating Bajoran flat bread spread with thin, green jam her mother had sent to her. Her mother often sent her gifts of homemade food, and while it was kind and not unwelcome, her tastes seemed to have changed since she was joined, and it didn't remind her of home as it once had done. 

Odo didn't eat, and Kira was fasting for one of the Bajoran festivals. Dax was sitting by the replicator, nibbling and sipping by herself, so she wouldn't bother them. Odo's hand was on Kira's wrist, steady and unmoving, as though he was taking her pulse. Kira was moving her other hand, and the rest of her body, gesturing as she spoke, but she held that wrist completely still, as though, if she moved it, she might frighten Odo, and he might never touch her again. 

Dax thought that might be true, now, but she looked forward to a time when Odo would touch Kira like that, casually, and neither would be afraid to break the spell. When he could take Kira's hand, and none of them would be afraid. 

JAKE

Jake waited until he saw Jadzia entering his father's quarters. Dad would be calmer with Jadzia there too, and Jake felt confident that Jadzia would take his side. 

Not that he'd need her support. Nog was just making him nervous. He looked over at his boyfriend. Nog was wearing a suit-jacket that was too big for him, and Jake thought he might have stolen it from Quark. He was twisting his fingers together, his shoulders hunched, his eyes downcast. 

Jake had to swallow hard, because he never thought he'd feel this protective of anyone, or this adoring. Nog flinched slightly when Jake took his hands, though the corridor was empty, and they were concealed from the turbolift by a bulkhead. His fingers were slightly warmer than Jake's own, though they were not sweaty at all: Ferengi just ran hotter than Humans. 

He let Jake interlock their hands, and Jake leant forward and kissed Nog lightly, just by his eye. “We're going to be fine,” Jake said. He let go off Nog's right hand, but kept hold of Nog's left. They would never usually hold hands like this, but Jake suddenly needed the comfort of it, the support. 

He went to the quarters before he could lose his nerve. Nog followed numbly: he had run out of arguments. The door slid open, recognising Jake, inviting him in. 

Jadzia was chatting to his father over a steaming saucepan. Dad was laughing and saying, “You think you're shocking me, Old Man, but I know you and your Trill ways too well...”

Jake coughed. Nog squeezed his hand so hard it hurt. Jake spoke before his Dad could ask a question. “Dad, I've— _we've_ got something to tell you.” 

His eyes found Jadzia's instead of his Dad's. She was smiling at him, warm and encouraging. “The things is,” Jake said, suddenly knowing what he needed to tell them, but aching with the wonder of it, “I've fallen in love.”


End file.
